


Thought Experiment

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, apparently it IS the Berenstain Bears, as interpreted by an English major armed with wikipedia and reddit, lots of real world fringe science/psuedoscience found here, quantum suicide and immortality, the mandela effect, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reading Etta a bedtime story leads Olivia on a journey that threatens to alter how she sees reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thought Experiment

Etta loved stories about bears. Ever since Peter had read her Winnie the Pooh shortly after she had begun to speak, they were always her favourites. 

So Olivia read her Winnie the Pooh, and Paddington and Burlap Bear, and when she ran out she asked Etta if she wanted to read about anything else. 

"Nope" Etta proclaimed, pulling the blanket over her chin "more bears please". 

The next day, when Olivia was talking to Rachel on the phone, she asked her, 

"Hey do you remember those books about the bear family we used to read?"

"Oh" Rachel said, thinking hard, "The Berenstain Bears, of course, we had a ton of them". 

"Do you know where they are? Etta's on kind of a bear kick, and I'm running out of books to read her". 

"It's true, Ella must have had me read Burlap Bear a hundred times. I'll take a look up in the attic, send you what I can find." 

And in a few weeks, she ships Olivia a cardboard box full of the books. Beat up hardback volumes share space with shiny, newer softcovers. There's titles Olivia remembers and ones she doesn't. 

Peter picks up one and hands it to her. 

"Glad its your turn tonight, I'm starting to get real tired of bears". 

And so Olivia slid on top of Etta's soft yellow comforter and read her "Go to the Doctor" 

In the middle Etta scowls and declares "Doctors aren't scary". 

Olivia nudges her on the shoulder. "Not all doctors are like grandpa. Most only give you one sucker". 

By the time she finishes, Etta is fast asleep. Before she leans over to turn her night light, the book cover catches Olivia's eye. 

She runs her finger along the bottom of the cover, along the authors' names. 

"B-E-R-E-N-S-T-A-I-N....no, no that's not right". 

After getting up, being careful not to wake Etta, she goes out into the kitchen, where the rest of the books are still on the table in their box. 

She pulls them out one by one. "S-T-A-I-N", on every single one. 

When she finally pulls herself away from the box and gets ready for bed, Peter is already curled up on his side of the bed. Olivia pulls out her laptop and opens it. 

"Please tell me there's not some big case I managed to forget about". 

"Do you remember reading the Berenstain Bears?" Olivia asks, not even looking up. 

Peter pulls himself into a sitting position, glancing at her. 

"The books Rachel sent? Sort of, but I don't remember much. I don't think I've seen those books since nursery school". 

Olivia continues, still staring at her laptop screen. "I would have sworn that the family and author name used to be spelled differently. Like, really certain. You know I have a good memory, I remember everything. But..."

She bites her lip in frustration. All her searches, book cover images old and new, book store sites, newspaper articles. "Every single thing I can find says it's always been that way."

Peter cocks his head, "Why is this bothering you so much?"

Olivia shakes her head. "It's not even that it bothers me that I might be remembering it wrong...every time I see it spelled this way, it's like my brain hits a wall. Like it has to stop and screech WRONG at me."

Peter reaches out to softly close her laptop lid. 

"Olivia, maybe I should read to Etta for a little while. While in our line of work I won't say that there's no way this means anything, I doubt it means anything you need to stress over."

He then rolls over and shuts off the lamp. 

Olivia tries to sleep, but all she can think about is something that just came to her. She's felt this way before. The niggling, buzzing feeling is exactly how she felt all those years ago when she was flashing to the other side. 

She tries to ignore it, tries to put it out of her mind, but it doesn't work. 

Later in the week, when she and Walter are alone at the lab cleaning up after a case, Olivia idly watches him out of the corner of his eye carefully placing his Red Vines away from the more dangerous chemicals and asks,

"Walter, do you ever think things from the Other Side just kind of...end up here and no one ever notices?"

Walter pauses for a moment, looking contemplative, but in a flash he's up again, holding some strange tool to Olivia's face.

"Strange, that you begin to see the glimmer again so long since the last time..."

She shakes him off, "Walter, stop, it's...not a glimmer."

She moves and sits on one of the chairs by his lab table, opens her shoulder bag and takes out one of the books. She hates that she's been carrying it around. 

"This is one of the books Rachel sent Etta, and every time I look at it, it just seems...wrong. I showed Peter and he didn't see anything strange. Etta didn't say anything about it either, and now it's all I can think about. It wasn't glimmering, but it gave me the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as when we were following Nancy and Susan Lewis and I was flashing back and forth to the Other Side". 

Walter begins drawing something on the blackboard. "There shouldn't be any items stuck from the other side, me and Belly were very careful about keeping them controlled. And if there were they should have the glimmer because of the difference in resonant frequencies..."

Olivia's stomach seizes up on her, "So what are you saying Walter, that I'm just...crazy or imagining it all?"

"One could say our whole experience as a species is a kind of collective madness...but that's not what I meant at all". 

He draws one point with several lines splitting off of it. 

"Just because it is unlike to be from the other side does not mean it's not from somewhere else". 

Walter pauses when he realizes Olivia's looking at him oddly. 

"We may have only ever contacted with one alternate universe, but that hardly means it's the only one". 

He draws more figures on the board. 

"The many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics posits that for every decision made there is another universe created. Of course, as a theory there is not generally accepted proof of it beyond hypothetical laboratory experiments, but our own experience should be enough for us..."

Olivia's grasping at strings, "Walter that still doesn't explain...are you saying that these books were somehow brought here from another universe that we've never been in contact with and no one's noticed besides me?"

Walter pauses, looking thoughtful. "I think the answer is a bit more esoteric than that...Lynch and Everett both wrote of the concepts of quantum suicide and immortality...that subjectively we are all to some degree immortal. That every time and individual dies in one reality, the consciousness does not notice because there is always another where it has survived." 

He reaches out to touch the book still in Olivia's hands. 

"If that holds true for the individual, it makes sense that it might hold for whole worlds."

"So you're saying that these book is the sole survivor of a destroyed universe?"

"More than that, with my increasing age and weakened memory, I am beginning to suspect that there may be many such things in our experience. A colleague of mine many years ago posits that shared false memories were glimpses of other universes. You and I have seen how easy it can be for a universe to be on the brink of destruction". 

Walter tucks the book back into her bag.

"Perhaps rather than truly separate, alternate universes truly overlap, and when one ceases to exist, others pick up the remnants". 

"Like me" Olivia says, feeling slightly breathless, "Picking up the remains of Olivia's memories from before Peter erases himself, that nothing.."

"That nothing, no detail, will ever be truly erased as long as somewhere, someone remembers it". 

Walter places a hand on Olivia's shoulder, "And I doubt, my dear, that you are truly alone in your observation. In the old days, I would suggest you post notices in local mailing lists, maybe write a piece for a minor interest journal. Today, I am told that the internet may be more fruitful". 

He then turns and rummages around the cabinets where he keeps some of his personal items in the lab. 

"In the mean time, these might provide a more calming choice of bedtime reading material". 

He hands Olivia a small stack of books. She glances at the top of one. Corduroy. 

Peter laughs at her later that night when she makes a post on the internet about the books. 

But they are all happier in a few weeks when Etta moves onto fairy tales.

**Author's Note:**

> Quantum suicide and immortality are both real concepts found in quantum mechanics primarily as thought experiments rather than real theories, except in the realm of quantum mysticism (considered pseudoscience)
> 
> The Mandela effect is a concept created by a "paranormal investigator" to explain shared false memories. Google it, and proceed to have your brain melt out your ears. 
> 
> I go off the rails into real Fringe fringe science at the end, that is all stuff I made up. 
> 
> Also, yes apparently it IS Berenstain, not Berenstein.


End file.
